Finding a Hard Drive in Just the Right Size

Q.Many lightweight laptops these days come with solid-state drives that have only 256 gigabytes or sometimes 512 gigabytes of space. Why are the drives so small? My old computer has a 500-gigabyte hard drive and I’m worried about fitting all my stuff.

A. Most of the current lightweight, travel-friendly “ultrabook” laptops come with internal solid-state drives that store data in a type of flash memory. Unlike traditional hard disk drives that use motors and spinning and magnetic platters, solid-state drives do not have moving parts, weigh less, operate faster and are generally more durable when it comes to being dropped.

Solid-state drives are more expensive to make and typically come in smaller capacities compared to hard disk drives. Thanks to the emergence of cloud-based services like streaming music and video, online word processing and remote photo storage, the reduction in space may not be as tight for some people who have shifted the files they used to store on their drives onto an internet-connected server. (Many of Google’s Chromebook laptops, which primarily store everything online, have drives as small as 16 gigabytes.)

If you have files you can store elsewhere, either in the cloud or on an external hard drive connected to the new laptop, you can offload them from the main drive if you get a laptop with a smaller capacity. Many laptop makers advertise devices in basic configurations, so even if a new computer’s drive looks as if it tops out at 512 gigabytes, you may be able to pay extra for a custom configuration with a one-terabyte solid-state drive.

Although Apple has switched most of its MacBook line to solid-state drives, other manufacturers like Lenovo and Dell still offer laptops with 500-gigabyte or larger hard disk drives. If you do plan to get an Apple laptop, the company has a 13-inch MacBook Pro model that can be configured with a one-terabyte hard disk drive and others that can be upgraded (usually for about $500) to a full terabyte of solid-state storage.

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